


Paws for Alarm

by Megkips



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-26 19:34:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5017669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Megkips/pseuds/Megkips
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Is this even your ball, Black Hayate?” my human asks, bending down to pick up the ball I’ve left at her feet.  It’s most certainly a ball that looks and smells like the one she threw across the park, all matted green felt and grass sticking to it, but definitely more beat up than before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paws for Alarm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Etnoe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etnoe/gifts).



> Happy Halloween, Sout! I really loved the idea of being able to see Riza spend some time with Black Hayate, and thought it’d be interesting to see their relationship filtered through his adorable eyes.

“Is this even your ball, Black Hayate?” my human asks, bending down to pick up the ball I’ve left at her feet. It’s most certainly a ball that looks and smells like the one she threw across the park, all matted green felt and grass sticking to it, but definitely more beat up than before. I blink up at her, my tail wagging, communicating that I absolutely think it is.

From behind her, my human’s friend Rebecca calls out, “Let me see!”

My human does just that, and she lets out a little annoyed noise as Rebecca shrieks, “Oh, _ew!_ That ball is definitely not the one you threw! It wasn’t _as_ covered in dog slobber!”

“That’s what I thought,” my human says, turning back to me. “Black Hayate, go find the other ball.”

The sharp bark I give is something that I hope makes it clear that _I’ll try, but I’m pretty sure that’s the right ball._ Still, I dash off across the park towards where I saw the ball go, the grass soft under my paws. That grass is one of the best parts about park days, since there’s so much hot sidewalk out there and no place to stand in order to cool off. 

By the time I’ve reached the area where the ball went, I realize that my human and her friend are nothing but tiny little dots far away from me. I can see them and the picnic blanket that they’re using, but I can’t make out anything that they’re saying. One of them waves at me when they notice that I’m looking at them, and I bark to let them know that I’m all right.

None of that helps me find the ball though. It blends into the grass, that much I know, so I put my nose down to the ground and begin to sniff. My human’s smell is very distinct because she uses those weird gun sticks humans have that make incredibly loud noises, and so I try and find that among the grass. There’s an old rubber bone that smells like a flower shop, a stick another dog was using recently, and -- _squirrels!_ \-- a bright purple ball that might belong to a human puppy instead of a dog. No ball. 

With a whine, I pick my head up. There’s the squirrel again, and--

\-- _the squirrel has my ball, and is rolling it away._

I let out a very loud bark in hope that the squirrel will just run away and leave my ball alone. That bark must get my human’s attention, because before I break into a run after the squirrel (the squirrel didn’t move, I don’t think he knew I was barking at him) and the ball, I see her get up off of her picnic blanket.

The squirrel’s plenty fast, abandoning the ball as I pick up my pace behind it, still barking. It’s about the principle of stealing my ball now rather than the ball itself, and I’m glad to force the squirrel to run through a bed of bright blue flowers before forcing it up a tree. I can’t climb that tree, but I bark louder and louder as the squirrel skitters up its trunk, and keep barking until my human and Rebecca are beside me, trying to understand all the fuss.

“Black Hayate,” my human scolds, tugging at my collar. “What was that all about?!”

I don’t whine on purpose when the collar’s tugged on, but it happens anyway. There’s no way to explain _that squirrel stole our ball!_ so I begin to trudge back towards where the ball was abandoned, expecting her and Rebecca to follow. They do so, and when I pick the ball up with my mouth, there’s a soft “ _oh_ ” from my human. Rebecca laughs, and crouches down so that she can pet behind my ears. Rebecca is _very_ good at petting behind my ears.

“He was just following orders!” Rebecca beams, looking up at my human. “You wanted him to get the ball, and he had to defend it before he could return it to you!”

My human lets out a low laugh, and crouches down besides Rebecca. She offers me an open palm, and I surrender the ball to her. “Is that right, Black Hayate? You had to scare a squirrel off your ball?”

I bark, making sure to wag my tail so that my human knows that the answer is _yes!_

“I see,” my human says, in her stern voice that shows that I definitely did something right. She places the ball into the pocket of her coat, and her hand moves to scratch behind my other ear. “You did the right thing, protecting your ball.”

“Maybe you should give him a treat for such good behaviour,” Rebecca suggests. I perk immediately at the suggestion.

“ _Rebecca!_ ” my human groans. “Don’t say the t-word!”

“Too late,” Rebecca says smugly. “I said it, now you have to give him one.” She leans in and whispers conspiratorially, “You’re welcome.”

In response, I lick her nose.

“Oh, fine,” my human says, a laugh somewhere in how resigned those words are. “Come on back to the picnic blanket then.”

I’m the only one of us to really hurry in heading back to the blanket, breaking into a run and then pausing every so often so my human and Rebecca can catch up to me. It takes five sprints to get back, and I don’t flop over on the gingham fabric until the other two are sitting. Immediately I move to rest my head on my human’s lap, making it hard for her to reach backwards towards the picnic basket so she can grab my treat. In this case, it’s a piece of bacon from a sandwich, and I’m quick to devour it all - and even stop to make sure I have all the tasty bacon bits that still cling to my human’s fingers. 

“There we go,” my human says with a smile, patting the top of my head. “Rebecca, do you want to have lunch, as long as we’re diving into the picnic basket?”

“We might as well!” Rebecca says cheerfully. I don’t move, forcing my human to keep petting me while Rebecca does all of the work in unpacking the food - and oh what food! The smell of bacon is obvious, but there’s also tomatoes and bread and cucumbers and all other sorts of things I’d love to eat, if chasing after thieving squirrels hadn’t demanded so much of my energy. A yawn escapes, and as my human and Rebecca start to talk about what’s going on their lives - family, friends they’ve visited recently, the pillow I destroyed just last week - I feel my eyes start to close. Somewhere in there I hear, “Oh, how cute, he’s falling asleep on you!” and the response of, “He does it all the time. It’s much cuter when he does it at work, as compared to Mustang.


End file.
